So long Viv Nicholson, the original working-class antihero

'Working-class women are meant to put up and shut up, like the long-suffering “mam” of the 1960s kitchen sink films. Viv Nicholson illuminated a different history.' Photograph: Ray Tang/Rex Shutterstock

No one quite knows what to make of Viv Nicholson. Justin Webb grappled with the problem on Radio 4’s Today programme. She was, he intoned, “a tragic figure”, though an outrageously lucky one, having won the pools in “an age when you generally had to achieve something before you became famous” (presumably excepting the royal family). Less than two minutes later, Nicholson was no longer a feckless aberration of a lost era – her life, said Webb, had “a period piece quality. There’s something about that kind of style which now would be – I don’t know … ”

This sums up the problem: our media and politicians disenfranchise working-class women. We’re fed a nostalgic version of the working-class past, populated by two, male, stereotypes: hardworking labour activists, the forefathers of Labour’s “hardworking families”; and socially aspirant young men set on escaping the working class, who populated novels and films such as Room at the Top, and legitimate politicians’ emphasis on social mobility. Poverty is blamed on today’s working class – particularly women and young people – who have allegedly succumbed to greed and benefit dependency. Working-class women are meant to put up and shut up, like the long-suffering “mam” of the 1960s kitchen sink films.

Viv Nicholson illuminated a different history. She was a reminder that in the era of full employment, a welfare state and the 11-plus exam, many people didn’t want to work hard or become middle class. When her husband Keith won the largest amount ever scooped on the football pools, the Nicholsons happily quit their jobs. They moved to a house on an upmarket estate, the only time Viv came close to regretting a purchase. Her neighbours were “the type that would get their car out of the garage, wash it, put it back, and then get it out again on Saturday and rewash it”. The couple threw raucous parties for their friends and enjoyed exotic holidays. Until the end of her life, Nicholson said she had “no regrets” about having spent their money this way.

Nicholson didn’t simply want a secure nine-to-five job; she longed for adventure. Her desires are shared by thousands

Rather than dismiss Nicholson as tragic or shameful, we should ask why her story inspired a popular TV drama and a hit musical. Her desires were, and are, shared by thousands. Nicholson didn’t simply want a secure nine-to-five job; she longed for adventure. She didn’t aspire to escape into middle-class suburbia; she wanted to enjoy life with her family and friends. Those fantasies remain popular among those who hope to win the lottery or The X Factor and are no less realistic than relying on “social mobility”, which only ever delivers limited gains to the few, while the majority remain at the bottom of the ladder.

Most of all, Nicholson wanted her children to enjoy a better life. She bought them toys as soon as the win came through; then she and Keith placed much of the money in trust for them. Viv, who had wanted to go to art school, was determined her children should have the opportunities that poverty had denied her.

Nicholson didn’t want to be middle class, but to live in a classless society, where everyone had the opportunity to do interesting things with people they loved. The joyfulness of that claim, which stands in stark contrast to the negative rhetoric of our “cut, cut, cut” politicians, explains why people are lamenting the loss of her “style”. But her anger and defiance is still out there, though it is largely ignored.

In one of the richest nations of the world, Nicholson’s imaginative aspirations should be our birthright.